Graduation
by jenni3penny
Summary: "Two days after the night they slept together and the cup she drank her coffee from is still sitting lipstick smudged and dirty in the sink basin... It's been two days of that damn coffee cup sittin' idle in his sink, same as two days of awkward silence as they work together but apart."
Two days after the night they slept together and the cup she drank her coffee from is still sitting lipstick smudged and dirty in the sink basin. He studies it in the morning quiet, squints a glare over it as he scoops cereal into his mouth and chews loudly, obnoxiously, intentionally. It's been two days of that damn coffee cup sittin' idle in his sink, same as two days of awkward silence as they work together but apart.

She's not avoiding him, that's for sure. But it seems a little like she's putting herself into his space only to deny the accusation that she could possibly be avoiding him in any way. She's been keeping quiet and hands to herself, though. And after feeling how warm they can be he feels as though this is a certain punishment, as though she's withholding her touch to penalize him for finally kissing her, tasting her, loving her.

Question is whether she's punishing him or herself. Maybe the both of them, actually.

Doesn't fuckin' matter. Either way... it's making it incrementally harder and harder to breathe.

She's choking him out with ghost hands and soft looks of apology every time she leaves a room.

"Did you hear me?" Emily's voice startles him, her tone slightly annoyed as she leans into his arm and dumps her cup into the sink.

It clinks knocking against the thin porcelain white of the other and he flinches minutely.

"No," Cal shakes back to her, lowering the bowl he's holding, "sorry, love. What?"

"I asked if Gill's still coming to dinner tonight," she offers with a questioning glance, her eyes looking too widely knowledgeable for her age. "Mom made reservations for five."

Was she? He didn't have a bloody clue. Not after the last two days.

They hadn't actually discussed it again since he'd asked her to join him and that slow smile of surprised but measured adoration had crept over her lips. She'd simply nodded an affirmative before squeezing on his wrist, just above his watch. A movement that had been surreptitiously intimate, innocent but meaningful somehow. And it had strafed fire through his lungs. Her fingers had made a trail up his bared forearm and wiped across ink before she'd just left his office, head pride high.

It'd been about six hours before Emily's baccalaureate, the place where he'd reached for her hand first and exhaled relief when she'd affectionately wrapped his palm up between both of hers.  
Nine hours before he had, without asking, driven her home to his house rather than her quiet and cozy apartment. He remembers desperately gripping against her knee as she'd watched him quietly, understandingly, from the other side of the car. Ten hours before he'd found a way under, over, and around every guarding wall she'd ever built between them.

"Dad?" Emily's tone has become impatient and caustic, sharp in the otherwise quiet kitchen. "Are you even awake right now?"

"She's comin', all right?" He mutters it out as he dumps the last of the milk down the sink and clatters the bowl in, intentionally ignoring the sight and sounds of dishes rattling together. "Dinner tonight, graduation tomorrow, party next week. She knows the schedule better than I do, she'll be there. Bleedin' Christ, Em, it's six in the morning."

"You feeling all right?"

He glowers at her as he turns away from the sink and counter, intentionally steps backwards away from her inspection with hands lifted. "Fantastic, Nurse."

She rolls her eyes at him with practiced ease, "It's just graduation, dad. Not the end of the world."

He feels his steps stilt and go rigid as he heads for the stairs, knows that Emily undoubtedly saw the trip of his movement and emotions.

"Wanna do up the dishes for me?" he waves back, his voice quieting lower. "I gotta get outta here."

"Sure."

* * *

It isn't a problem. Not an actual issue, per se.

He's doing his level best to convince himself that it just... isn't a problem.

He doesn't have any qualms with her staying on her feet instead of slinging into the chair beside him in the conference room. The fact that she, instead, keeps moderately pacing opposite him and behind Loker's chair means nothin', really. Her fingers blindly trace the back of the other man's seat as she offers her opinion on their most recent case and he feels his face twitch toward a response just before he schools himself, banks his glance down over the table and slants his shoulders harder into his chair.

It isn't a problem, her putting distance (and another man) between them.

Except... why Loker? Just because he's male? Because he's tall as a tree and could, possibly, be imposing? Ya know, if you didn't actually personally know him? Because he's got no issue bein' a nosy and weaselly little shit?

It isn't a _problem_ , necessarily...

It's total damn disaster.

And he's not lettin' it happen.

* * *

"Just stop, wouldja?" His hand jerks her back by the waist, tipping her on her heels as he swings her back and around in the hall, breathless and frustrated. "Jesus, you're like a gazelle."

He hadn't necessarily meant to tug her up so close but, _fuck_ , she so easily fits the front of him. And better now than she had a week before, months before, years. Now her lines have found a parallel to him and he aches into how easy it is just to face his hips into hers, find a way to press his thigh directly between hers as his palm skirts her waist.

It's no accident, the shifting and reflexive match of her hips as she meets his eyes and lets him rub his fingertips up her spine. "Cal - "

"Em wants to know if you're still comin' tonight," he whispers as he presses the silken fabric of her shirt harder into the lower arch of her back.

Her palms brace on his arms, a slightly surprised look draws her head back and she blinks at him. It's a moment of obvious confusion before she steps back and out of his hold and slopes her hand down the arm he has curled on her. She grips his hand up into hers, forces it slightly away from her body but keeps hold of it as she tugs him into her office.

"Emily wants to know?" she asks as she shuts the door with the other hand, leaning back against it as he tightens his fingers to keep her from letting go.

"Tell me you're still comin'," he implores quietly, ignores how sharply his own pride stings at how soft his voice has become. "Yeah?"

Her eyes squeeze shut, the entirety of her frame laxing back into her office door as her hand goes loose in his, "I don't know."

He drops her hand without realizing he's done it, lets his own palm fall flatly dull and lifeless at his side as he stares at her. Cal lets a shake of his head go into silence before he snorts a derisive noise between them, forcing himself to look away from her remorse before chewing into his cheek. He forces air into his lungs and lets his shoulders slag lower, slowly turning his head into her watching.

"What're you doin', Gill?"

"I don't know." She looks legitimately, sadly, and desperately confused. He's got no problem believing that her discombobulation is real, that she is absolutely unsure of him and them and the situation. Of herself too, seems just as much.

Sinks his gut low, though. Knowing that her response is so viscerally real.

"Wanna pretend it didn't happen? Business as usual?" He makes sure his voice is clear but dry in the question, forces any emotion from his tone. No accusation, no expectation, nothing that could seem either pleading or judgmental to her discerning ear. "That what you're thinkin'?"

Her eyes flinch smaller, the pretty color shading darker as she barely (confusedly) shakes her head but still doesn't meet his glance. "No, not really."

"Then... look at me," Cal demands quietly, waits out her stubbornness before she finally ups her jaw and resolutely stares back at him. There's some fight in her face that there wasn't before, somehow she's found that strength of will again and it makes him nod forward. "Tell me you're still comin' tonight. Want you with me."

"As?"

 _As_?

As his...what?

Just his. As _his_.

"As what?" he feigns confusion out of reactionary fear, makes sure his features follow the faked emotion and broadcast it in her direction – even knowing she won't buy it. Knowing she'll see sharply through the play of knit up eyebrows.

She's always been the best at seein' right on through his bullshit.

Gillian just gives him a starkly blank look, removing any chance he may have had at actually reading an inch of that beautiful face. "Exactly."

Yeah, sure, exactly. _As what, exactly_? He doesn't know, bloody hell.

He doesn't know what she wants. Knows what he wants, sure. Knows he wants more of her, more of them, more of the way she'd moaned a delightfully scandalous and sated noise into his ear as he'd teased his fingers into and out of her. He'd purposefully watched her face as he'd slid into her the first time, memorized the moaning in her throat. He'd thought maybe the flutter of her lashes and the way she'd tipped her head back, lips parted as she'd panted, had been the sexiest thing he'd ever seen on her.

Because it'd seemed like, maybe... maybe it'd been the absolute, unguarded, truth. It'd seemed, maybe... finally right. Like he'd finally made sense to someone, with someone. Like they'd finally properly solved the equation of them as a pair, together.

('Business acquaintances' wasn't nearly enough, 'partners' was too clinical, 'best friends' was... so close but _still_ slightly incorrect.)

Christ, they shoulda talked this through... Maybe when she'd crawled out of his bed and he'd jerked her back with an unrelenting grip in the cotton of the shirt she had slipped on. His shirt, his bed, her blush as he'd kissed her and then let her go, watching as she'd ducked into his adjoining bathroom. Or when she'd been sipping sweetened coffee from that cup and surreptitiously watching him make her a plate full of eggs the next morning. Probably maybe when she'd pressed her palm flat against his chest before leaving and just nodded her head lower into him, let him kiss her temple and breathe the smell of her (of him all over her) into his lungs.

He scrubs his hand over his face, shakes his head into utter confusion. "Gill... it's not me bein' awkward about this."

And how in the hell had that happened, huh?

That he was the one being near to normal and she was the one that was freaking out?

"I know," she responds softly, still stretched into her door and nodding agreement with how gently he's given the accusation. "I just... I don't know what it means."

"You mean the sex?" he asks quietly, nodding forward as his hand waves between them. "With me?"

"The sex. With you," Gillian agrees with a roll of her eyes, a look on her face that says he's an absolute nutter for not following along. Well, s'cuse him for not being on track with her crazy-train. She was lucky he was managing to hang on around the corners of the conversation because his brain felt short-wired, criss-crossed up with terrified confusion.

This isn't at all how he'd imagined nor planned it to be, not ever.

In fact, it's comin' dangerously close to every actual fear he's ever had about tellin' her exactly how he feels about her.

He squints at her, cocks his head into intently watching her face and seeing the exact moment when she realizes he's doing it. "What's it mean to you?"

"I just told you – I don't know," she shoots back, shoving off the door and past him toward her desk to avoid the intensity of his watching and the severity of the question.

Cal watches her fidget as she starts shuffling her desk together, organizing things that don't need to be organized. She intentionally blocks him from seeing her face, her fear, all of it. "You've an idea of it, you just don't wanna share it with me. Right?"

Her head half turns toward him and sharply, draws him to watching her hair and then down her throat as her hands still on her papers. There's a definitive slump to her frame, starting at her shoulders as she shakes her head minutely. "Not without knowing - "

"Not without knowin' what it meant to me? That it?"

"Yes." The confession seems heavy off her, like a legitimate weight she's been carrying. Something so solid that it has her leaning her palm onto the desk even as she angles toward him, her other hand fidgeting along the silky fabric of her shirt as she shrugs him a nervous look. "You haven't said a word about it in two days, Cal."

 _He hasn't_? She's been ducking every... oh, for fuck's sake. He's not messin' about with it. That's it.

"You've been avoidin' me like the plague, Foster. I was s'posed to bring it up during a staff meeting and in front of everyone?" The step he takes forward seems to startle her and he doesn't realize until he sees her shoulders shore up that he's moved so close. He slowly lifts his hand into taking her fingers, stilling them against her stomach on a shrug. "Excuse me? Darling? Hold the budgeting – let's discuss that time we had sex?"

"I haven't been - "

"You locked me outta here," he counters sharply over her obvious argument, the other hand lifting to tap against her forehead, "completely."

She squints against the accusation he's made and blinks as he drops his fingers, tapping against her collarbone and feeling her grasp for a full breath under the stroking touch that follows. "And outta here too, yeah?"

"It was important, Cal." The admittance is made so quietly, her voice tight and her eyes shut as she leans into how closely pressed he is. "To me. It wasn't just... It was important."

Thank Christ for small favors, then. That statement alone halves his concerns, strikes down a whole list of possible variations that horrify the hell out of him. Even now, were she to start regretting the situation, at least it wouldn't be out of a place of apathy. Not that he thinks apathy is something she's capable of – not when it comes to people she's close to, the ones she cares about. But the very possibility that she'd be less than invested, or that this isn't relevant to their lives – that concerns him.

"What makes you think it wasn't equally as important to me, huh?"

"Emily."

"What?" He catches her hands up in his, jerks against her fingers as he draws his head back to send a searching look over her face. "She say somethin' to you?"

"No, I mean..." Her voice whispers into the apologetic look on her face, the way she ducks his eyes as she shakes her head. "You're not handling her graduation well, Cal."

And, again... _what_? All right, so even if she is right? And so?

"And you think I'm subconsciously deflecting, distractin' myself," he murmurs, watches her head lift as he says it, recognition flicking over her face and a sudden comfortable pride in her as she blinks.

Right then, Doctor Foster. He knows her and her patterns of thinkin', knows her well.

He doesn't even need to see her face to know what she's implying, what she's thinking, what worries she can cleanly organize and categorize in that brilliant beautiful head of hers. "Possibly."

He nods slowly, curbs any inclination to balk at the accusation because, hell, she's probably more right than wrong. "With you."

"Yes," Gill agrees with a voice that's all breathy remorse and hope that it isn't true despite the fact that she's... well, she's makin' a solid point.

But it's right true. She's the finest fuckin' distraction he's ever seen, isn't she? And has been since he first stepped into her office, found out that she could save him (from himself) sometimes.

She's been the best of possible distractions for years at a time. Been the thing he looks to when he can't seem to focus or find himself (even when he should have been looking toward his own wife). She's solid and guarding and warm and he finds an inevitable solace in her loyalty, her surety, her incurable adoration of him.

She's the first phone call, the longest goodbye at the end of the day.

And he knows, without a doubt, all of that's written on his face – just by the way she's intently watching him. "You've always been a distraction, darling. My favorite - "

"Don't. Don't do that." She takes her hands back from his touch and presses his leaning back with a sure hand, forces his entire stance away from her enough that he has to take a step back from her seriousness. "I mean it. I'm not just a replacement, Cal. You can't just grab onto me to stay afloat because you know that she's leaving soon. Just... jumping into a relationship to fill the void? It's not fair."

"M'not, Gill," he argues instantly, though... possible she's onto something, in a way.

Possible she's got a point about the timing of finally finding balls big enough to reach for her. Entirely possible that she's slightly right in her estimation – because he's known how much he wants her for an eternity and a half but it's only in the middle of the realization that his daughter is actually graduating, leaving, moving on, that he's entirely owned up to it.

He hates it when she's right – or even near possibly right.

When she's smarter than he is, when she knows him better than he knows himself.

"It certainly looks like you are,"Gill murmurs, her fingers rubbing against her skirt hem as she shrugs between them. "The timing seems..."

"Disastrous, eh?" There's a hedging of guilt in his tone but he's still sincere, body loose and farther relaxed than either of them would usually expect. Even he's surprised by his own stillness, how much it implies his true intentions – apologetic and still leaning her way. By how sure he may physically seem even as his skin crawls at the idea of her back-stepping.

"A little, yeah."

Cal nods slowly into her agreement, accepts the possibility of what she's saying before he reaches for her fingers and tugs against them anyhow. "Come with me tonight."

"Cal - "

"Gimme tonight, just as my best friend," he assures, voice clear even as she swings him a half glare of disbelief. "Won't lay a hand on ya, I swear."

She's got that look trained on him, the one that's thin but assertive, all squall eyes and wisdom. The one that's sorta sexy no matter how often she throws it at him. "I don't know."

"It's _Em_ , Gill," he hushes between them, leaning forward again as she grips his fingers up in hers and studies his hand. "She wants you there. I need you there, as my friend. Yeah?"

"I'm not saying that I don't want... it. I'm not saying that, Cal." Reality is clear in her voice – the truth bein' that she's nervy and concerned by the situation. But, really, wouldn't be Gill if she didn't second guess his habit of just jumping headlong into things. Wouldn't be her if she didn't guard his actions and watch his back and question the morality of his intentions. "Just that - "

"Get what you're sayin', love. We'll slow it down, yeah?"

It's not the best possible scenario he can come up with, not when he knows that kissing her right now would taste delicious like safety and maybe make his heart stop roaring the blood up echoing in his ears.

It's not his favorite resolution but, hell, it's more than he had a week ago. It's just a slight back-step to balance. Hopefully.

"Maybe, yeah." And her thumb rubbing his knuckles, placing pressure between them, that seems like an excellent sign considering the fact that an hour before she'd been intentionally avoiding him. "That sounds good."

"Come with me tonight, though?" Cal ducks into the question, forcing her to face him as he continues, a half begging smile on his lips that grows wider as she obviously considers it. "No tricks, Gill. On the level."

He bets on the fact that she cannot hold back her smile from him if he's being sincere and honest and openly vulnerable with her. That's a bet he's always been able to win, really. With her, anyhow. Just that he keeps it pocketed for the moments when it's utterly and absolutely necessary.

Works too. Because she's rolling her eyes into a lazy smile as she minutely nods her head at him. "Okay."

Right, okay. So... crisis diverted, though not necessarily entirely averted.

He's debating the possibility of a kiss as he steps closer, taking the risk into account as he leans into her and presses his fingertips against her pelvis. "Wear something sinful, huh?"

"Because that'll help the situation." At least she laughs as she catches his wrist still, her nails digging against the soft pulse point to stall him from shifting any farther.

Still, the forward lean of her shoulders and the way her head tips an opposite angle to his.

The possibility of this reward is far greater than the risk, right?

He hums a sound of comforting along her throat, drops his jaw and angles his mouth against that warm stretch of skin. He shifts the movement into hugging before she can tense up, lays a single kiss against her throat and grins when he hears, feels her whimper under his lips. "Be a bloody good distraction, though. Won't it?"

"Get off me," she freely (thankfully) laughs into shoving him off her, playfully slapping against his hip as he stumbles back on her carpet with a chuckle. "Jackass."

This is enough – least that's what he tells himself.

That, slowly, incrementally, fuckin' painfully, this will be enough.

And...slowly, incrementally, it'll be more.

That's the plan, though, as he leans into her door and jerks at the handle. "Come over early? Em's gonna want a woman's opinion."

She watches him with that way she has - the one that says she knows every inch of him. Well, and now she knows distinctly more than the last time she gave him that particular look, doesn't she? "Six thirty?"

"Perfect," he mugs a grin at her, catches the way it brightens up her eyes as her head lifts into his leaving. And he can't explain the pausing, nor stop himself from turning back. "Gill?"

She waits in expectant silence and he pushes aside the realization that it's a state she's been in for far longer than he'd like to admit- silently patient, waiting for him to just catch up and step up.

"Was important to me too. I mean it," he tells her quietly, watches the realization of unguarded truth in her eyes as he says it. "You believe me, yeah?"

She gives him a sharp and unequivocal nod, her voice sure as she smiles that same damn smile at him again. "I believe you."

* * *

He's doing especially well at just... being normal. At not expecting anything or pushing at her or even implying anything has come between them. He's just being Cal – and that calms her near completely as she accepts the cup of coffee he hands her before he moves past her in the kitchen, his focus obviously on something else. He breezes through the room in shirt tails and dress pants and socks while his tie hangs loosely open around his neck. Gill watches as he rips a scrap of paper from where it's been stuck to the fridge, his glance finally skirting her and lingering lightly as he steps toward the island opposite her. His laptop is open across from her and she watches as he tosses the note down and works the mouse, frowning as he waits for something on the computer.

"She almost ready?" He asks quietly over the top of the screen, letting his glance drift over her face and hair and shoulders and she sees the moment he reprimands himself, the bracing shift of his eyes as he focuses on the screen again.

"Give her another twenty minutes." Gill takes a slow swallow of coffee, letting her shoulders relax into the fact he's already added cream for her, already softened its bitterness. "She has plenty of time."

"Shoulda checked this earlier," he tells her distractedly, typing just before his glance lifts back up, lofting over the computer so that he can (supposedly) surreptitiously study bare shoulders. "Shoulda had Anna check it."

She half smirks into his perusal, counters it with one of her own until he catches her tipping her head to take a look down the untucked white of his shirt. "Zoe's flight?"

"She never checked in." Her obvious interest makes him seem... nervous as he speaks. And she smirks as he types in a couple numbers from the note and then starts tucking his shirt in, attention back focused on the screen. "Not that I expected her to but woulda been nice to know."

Gillian just nods understanding, pressing off the edge of the island and abandoning her cup, his eyes following her movement stringently before he sucks down a breath and takes up his tie, a shrugging in his shoulders. "I mean, she coulda said - "

"Let it go, Cal," she murmurs, taking the tie into her hands and tugging him up flush by the ends of it. He stretches up into her movements, lifts his jaw into watching her as she drops the ends to correctly re-button up the crooked collar and fix his lapels. "You could have checked with her just as easily."

"I know. Y'look..." She hears his words exhale harshly out of his lungs, feels the touch of his fingertips up under one elbow as she takes the tie ends back up and waits for him to continue, a half smile rising unbidden on her lips. "This all right? Tellin' you how stunning you are?"

"It's good." Gill nods soft agreement as she starts working the tie, slowly knotting it as his jaw rises on a grin.

"Could tell me I look stunnin'. Wouldn't bother me a bit."

She snorts out a laugh, catching sight of his eyes and the softness in the mingled greens and browns and blues as she jerks the knot tighter. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you."

"And just, ya know, something else of note?" Cal lifts a hand behind hers, adjusting the knot along his throat while she presses the fabric of the tie down straight, his hand quickly catching after hers to enterprisingly trap it up against his chest.

"Go ahead."

"Thought you were stunning years ago," he hums off gently between them, eyes sparking brighter in humor as he winks at her. "Long before my daughter got it into her head to do somethin' so moronic as graduate high school and go off to college."

"Point made. Again, thank you," she allows with a perked smile.

She lets him watch her for a moment, keeps the smile going wider even as her skin starts to flush up under the intensity of his staring. It's purposeful, the way he's looking at her, intentionally hard but soft at once. His eyes have glittered a little even as they've gone darker, pupils a bit wider than usual and his breathing near stilled. Her hand flexes under his, a twitchy feeling raking over her skin, heat grazing on her as his tongue swipes against his lips in his silence.

He lets her brush against his chest, loosens her hand as she catches against one of the pearled shirt buttons and tugs lightly. His voice valves warmly over her as she studies the stretch of his chest and torso. "I like this, Gill. This... it's..."

"You smell good," she murmurs, flushing even farther as his head tips a sharp angle of bemusement in response. "Vest and jacket?"

"Gettin' there," he agrees with a lazy shrugging, leaning himself closer.

The deliriously familiar scent of him arches her lower back up and she smiles reflexively. He watches her as he inches forward, catches the subtle rise of her jaw and the way her teeth nip into her bottom lip as her lashes go lower. That may have been utterly intentional on her part, lifting that particular look into his nearness. But the rioted colors of his eyes have a thunderous effect on her pulse rate and for once she's perfectly allowed to enjoy this heady playfulness, the warmth that breathes in him with he's just being her cheeky, loving, _adorable_ Cal.

"You keep that look to yourself, love. S'too tempting," he chastises with a half serious whisper, the other half of his tone falling careless down the side of her neck before he nuzzles near her ear, lays his lips lightly but chastely on her cheek.

"I can't look at you?" She knows she's smiling humor into the words, can't help it when one of his hands has found a way to rub a light line up and down her stomach, like his fingertips are simply studying the fabric of her dress.

"Like that? Like this?" He pushes his mouth to hers because he just can't help himself from being himself. God, he just can't help being a relentlessly obstinate (but excellent) son of a bitch. Especially when he kisses her so slowly and stretches his palm flat and unmoving against her torso, when he nips lightly but suggestively along her bottom lip and grins as he withdraws. "Your rules, not mine."

"It was, actually, your rule,"Gill accuses softly, more breath in her voice than she'd expected as she licks against her tender lips. "Your idea."

His head cocks at her, eyes focusing so sharply and clearly that she just blinks into how sure he suddenly seems, all knowing eyes and nice shoulders as he leans over her with confidence and a quieted voice of sincerity. "Well, what was my other option? It was slowin' things down or not havin' them at all, right?"

"Cal - "  
"Look at me." She already is but she knows that he says it for another reason entirely. He wants her to read him, to extrapolate his base intentions and emotions and to really know that he means what he's about to say. It doesn't happen often, this unguarded honesty. But, hell... he's so gorgeous to her when he allows his true emotions to show on his face and in the subtle way his body shifts closer. "Waited for you this long, ain't I?"

He really _really_ has. Regardless of the other women who seem to drop in and out of his life, back and forth with him... none of them have seemed to make him so serious in his endeavors as she does. None of them have held this hold on him for more than a decade. She knows that. She understands it, when she considers it from the perspective of a scientist, with a linear and clear thought process. He's waited more than long enough, just to her side and patiently. Well, as patiently as he possibly could with jealousy and possession being two things that can control him without remorse.

But, even with the likes of Burns... he _tried_ to take that step aside into patience. Sort of.

Which, admittedly, is no small feat for a man the likes of Cal Lightman.

She rolls her eyes teasingly into turning away from him, feeling his hand slope from her but gently as she reaches for the forgotten coffee and lifts the mug "I hate when you say 'ain't'."

"I know."

Gill takes a sip into the chippy and bemused way he's watching her, purposefully slowing the swallow as his glance flits over her mouth and then back to her eyes. "Let alone the intentional abuse of basic grammar just because you think it's cute or... European, or something."

Another smile flicks through his eyes but doesn't quite touch his mouth. "I am European, darling."

She nods quick agreement, lifting the mug higher between them to shield against how attractive he actually is when he's being both smug and self conscious at once. "And cute, unfortunately."

"Oi," he mocks at her, eyes widened, " _unfortunately_?"

"For me. And my resolve," she explains rapidly, unable to stop herself with how affectionately gentle he's being. "God, you're being sweet."

He quirks her one quick humored smile before his jaw tips downward, "About us?"

"About everything. Stop being so nice to me," she explains, hears her own voice go a little uncontrolled and shaky. It's shockingly unexpected, this lack of restraint when it comes to him and honesty and there's a sudden deluge of brash truth coming out of her mouth and she can't stop it. "Why are you... I'm obviously just stalling because I'm completely terrified of you. Why can't you see that? You're not actually that blind."

He smiles wide and broad and so obnoxiously perfectly that she can't help but blush – but then there's a beat of a moment wherein he seems to reassess her words and his eyes muddy up with a look that can nearly be classified as crest-fallen. "Gillian."

It's the mention of being scared of him, she's sure. Because she means one thing and she doesn't doubt that he's taking it beyond one thing and making it a thousand little ones in his head.

But she also doesn't necessarily know how to address it yet, fingers waving nervously between them as her mouth just rambles on without her permission. "Not that I don't have a very good point when it comes to the Emily situation."

"Didn't argue there, love," he admits with a sullen gentleness. "Terrify you, huh?"

"You're a very... intense and passionate and complex man, Cal." The explanation is quietly made as she sits to the stool, sets her cup back to the island and lets her fingers touch light against the back of his hand as she studies how tightly flexed his wrist. "A brilliant, beautiful, _difficult_ man."

That wrist goes stronger, bulks with tension as his fingers curl up under the way she traces on the back of his hand. His voice is so quiet it startles her attention back as he whispers near her temple. "Who terrifies you?"

She can't meet his eyes when he sounds so self consciously cautious but she also can't move away from him because she knows, God, she knows he's taking one word of twenty and piling his own fear and self doubt on top of it, using it as a martyr's flag. Of course she could list a litany of wonderful things about him and he'd still focus on the fact that there are days wherein she is absolutely terrified of what he's done, what he could do, where he could go without her. And, Cal being Cal, of course he unconsciously connects it to a small child's fear of punishment or fists or whiskey tipped fury. He doesn't recognize the fact that loving him, just for the sake of loving him, means she will always be terrified by his actions, by the fact that sometimes he cannot control himself in regards to finding the truth in a situation. He cannot censure himself some days - and _that_ is the thing that scares her.

Because it often leads to explosions of multiple magnitudes, both physical and emotional.

Instead of lifting her head she lifts the other hand and finds the unbuttoned cuff with both hands, buttoning it together slowly and linking her fingers around his wrist loosely, intentionally casually. "Not like that and you know it."

She feels the tension release from his wrist and forearm slowly, feels the swaying shift of him as he lets his shoulders drop in relief. He simply turns his face into the side of her head and there's really not another place she can imagine wanting to be in that moment. Because there's nothing like knowing that this man, this brilliantly passionate and sometimes psychotic (but beautifully honest) man... truly cares for her. He loves her, innumerable levels of love, from platonic to passionate to lustful.

Accepting the sheer weight of that truth isn't easy for her – except that it really is so easy when he's just leaned along the side of her and groaning an appreciative sound against her temple as he very obviously breathes in the smell of her.

"Mom wants to know if we're gonna be on time." She expects him to shift away from her at Emily's interruption but his body stays still even as his jaw lifts against the side of her head and presses weight there. He stays close and warm and there's something calming about how much he just doesn't care that his own daughter is witness to the way they're clutched up together.

"She's leaving for the restaurant in twenty."

"Oh, let y'know she made it, did she? Woulda been nice t'know down here in the galley." His accent hums annoyance through his throat and she near misses the words. His voice is a grating seduction, just by how close and low and delicious it is.

Only takes a moment for her to catch up, though. To realize that he's being snarky. "Cal."

"Are you gonna be grouchy indefinitely?" And Emily's obviously always been able to defend her own self, because she plays into his tetchy banter with a tone that smacks of Zoe. "Because when some male animals are routinely belligerent, we neuter them."

"And that's 'xactly why you never had a dog." There's humor in his answer, a smile in his voice as she lifts her head from his leaning and makes him shift back a fraction. He dances a mischievous look her way before pursing his lips accusingly back as his daughter.

"Again, are we gonna be on time? Or does she need to bump the reservation?"

"We'll be fine." Gill softens gently between them, lifting her hand to press flat against his chest and lay lightly against the warmth of his shirt. "And on time."

"Thank you." Emily responds with an appreciative glance toward the older woman before turning out of the kitchen and on her way.

She can feel the way he's watching her, rubs her fingers into his chest and leaves her hand pressed on him before she lifts her head under his scrutiny. "What?"

"Nothin'." His accent sways heavily on the word and she smiles into it, notes the intentional thickness of it as his head dips toward hers, his lashes lowering as his eyes take a touring over her mouth. "I just... wanna get this right, Gill."

"Me too," she agrees with a warm smile of reassurance. "You're very handsome, by the way."

His boyish grin flares up like a searchlight, brightens on her suddenly. "Make a pair, eh?"

Gill nods with an arched glance, unable to keep a slight twitch of a smirk off her lips. "You'd look even better with the vest and jacket on."

"Yeah, yeah." He kisses brusquely against her temple before shoving himself from the island, shoulders high as he heads for the stairs. "Quit naggin' at me."

"Shoes too, probably."

* * *

He knows he's been utterly shameless in watching her, near ogling her in front of an audience. Doesn't much care, though. Not considering how easily she smiles that blushing little smirk at him every time she notes that his eyes are pretty much glued to any bit of her that moves beside him. Even the shift of her hand as she sets her fork aside and politely excuses herself from the table, her palm making a surreptitious shove against the leg he keeps leaning farther and farther into her knee.

Gill's eyes are full bright as her voice lowers, humor and annoyance at once. "Stop it."

"Stop what, darling?" he murmurs, leaning into her movement as she shifts the napkin to the table and moves to stand from beside him.

Her hand clamps his shoulder as she rises, nails taking a precise dig into muscle as she leans closer and lowers the sound of her voice to a near null whisper, "Looking at me as though you've seen me naked."

"May've done." The smug in his voice follows after her at a higher volume but he keeps his grin aimed over her half empty salad bowl, a chuckle passing his lips as Emily slips off to join her.

He waits a beat before turning his glance back, casually studying the way Emily leans up into Gill as they head for the bathroom in tandem. They're chatting and he doesn't need to hear a bit of it to appreciate the image of his daughter being so easily comfortable and free and confident with her. They've always been a bit of a pair anyhow, able to instantly tag-team on him and create some unbreakable bond of emotional superiority – most especially when he's bein' a shit to one, the other, or both. Doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy watching the evidence of that camaraderie.

"You know," Zoe murmurs slowly, carefully, "years of wondering whether or not the two of you were actually - "

"Which, we weren't," he blankly explains more toward the quiet man beside his ex-wife rather than actually saying it to the way Zoe is widening a look at him.

Her date, fiance, whatever... he seems especially well whipped and polite. Boring.

Probably an excellently bland financial adviser or accountant or stock broker. Double the boring.

"Exactly." Zoe nods as she swipes up her wine glass, wings it toward her lips and gulps down a hard swallow. "But now you have."

Cal squints at her, pretends to not have a soddin' clue as to what she's talkin' about. "Have what?"

"You two slept together," she says, more to the wine glass than to him. "You can't keep your eyes off her, Cal. I know exactly what it looks like when you're smitten and this is... wow."

One thing he's always stung at admitting to is the very concept that Zoe is correct in any assumption she makes regarding his _feelings_.

However, she's got him pinned on not being able to keep his eyes off Foster.

Because the dress she's wearing isn't quite so much sinful as it is a sort of... unprecedented gift to his senses, tailored toward breaking him. And it's successful at just that, really.

She knows his weaknesses when it comes to her body. Gave her evidence of that when he couldn't keep from stroking against her back and shoulders, nuzzling and licking against her throat, groaning his face happily between her breasts, cradling both palms onto her hips and tugging her closer. And the deep red fabric is excellently showcasing each and every curve of her he's ever caught himself adoring. Collarbone and beautiful bare shoulders, her hair tied back so he can salivate over the long stretch of her throat into classy but still a little sneaky bit of cleavage. It wraps her hips and hugs down the length of her to cut just at the backs of her knees.

He has a flashback of how ticklish she is right at that soft skin, unconsciously sees an echoing image of her laughing under his teasing fingertips.

He's seen her in red dresses.

This isn't a dress so much as glorious (but chic and still Foster-like) gift wrapping.

"Really?" Cal shakes himself back, bites down on the re-memory of a smile and tips his ex-wife a blank staring. "We're havin' this discussion the eve of our daughter's graduation?"

"This is beyond smitten," Zoe accuses quietly and, well, considering the fact that the shoes Gill's wearing make her calves flex him right into a near heart attack... well, he can't deny the accusation and be completely honest, can he? "Did it just happen?"

"Zoe." He blinks his eyes shut in answer to the way she leans forward and away from her current companion. She's nearly cross examining over the table and he feels a wry smile twist onto his lips in spite of the fact that he'd really rather not have this conversation at all, let alone in front of her current fiance.

"It just happened, didn't it?"

Cal lifts her that same smile, feels it sharpen darker at her as he shrugs, "What? Y'mean just now?"

"Holy shit. I'm just... " She looks utterly and absolutely stunned, her face slack as she drops her own bared shoulders back into the chair. "I need a drink."

He smiles wider rather than vocally noting that she already has one in her hand.

And Gillian says he can't control his mouth. Controlling it just fine, he is.

* * *

He can't help but tug her close, wrap against her even as he sucks down a breath and admits, "Zo knows."

He wants her close, wants her lock-stepped with him so that if this becomes a problem, an issue, he can at least keep her from bolting on him. She's still a bit aloof with him, still tentative in her leaning as he rubs against the fabric covering her back, finds her opposite hip and palms heat against it. It's a moment before she loosens up into his side but when she does he goes blind to the fact that they're in public, turns his head into hers and lets himself nuzzle at her ear without questioning the movement.

"You told her." Her tone says that it's a statement. She's not questioning the decision or even finding fault with it, really. But he shakes his head, tucks her closer despite the shrug of acceptance that shifts her shoulders.

"Not intentionally," Cal murmurs as they move slowly up the cobbled steps that lead to her apartment door, swaying farther into each other in a manner that settles his nerves on the subject. He draws his head up entirely, considering quietly before he continues. "Didn't lie to her when she asked, though. Didn't want to."

"Well," Gill sighs it toward him as she turns a look over his profile, "explains why she got so quiet."

"It's quite a realization, finding out your biggest fears were completely unfounded."

"Because?" The backs of her knuckles lift along his tie and he falters a little in his steps, slows their movement a few feet from her door so that she can cutely fiddle with the fabric while he turns her up to face him. She lets him do it, though. She more than allows it by leaning her arms up into his chest and tugs a little on his tie to tease at him. The coat she's wearing is a plush warm fabric that cuddles her up into him and he likes it, likes how delicate she seems under it as she lets him hold onto her.

Crazy new to him, this Foster that _lets_ him enjoy her.

Crazy fuckin' wonderful, though.

"Because she always worried there was somethin' goin' with us and seeing it as a truth now is different. She's seeing the difference between nothin' and somethin'." One hand has claimed possession along her waist and he lifts the other into tipping a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He watches a reflexive smile catch over her lips in reaction, her face instantly falling into a lulled relaxation. "Now she's realizing that she was just lettin' her own head get in the way."

Gill smiles wider, arches him up a dry look while he rubs along the back of her ear. "You didn't help, Cal. You intentionally antagonized her when it came to me."

"Yeah, well," he huffs a breath of guilt in answer, "am what I am, darling."

She's bemused by the admittance, leans farther into him with a nudge. "Impossible?"

"With a side of charming, I think." The response is a quick and basic one and it broadens her smile as he'd assumed it would, makes her eyes go silvery pretty by the lift of her head as she grins.

Something giddily happy crosses over her features and he wraps her up tighter in response, his gaze searching over her. "You're so beautiful tonight. Not sure I wanna let you outta my sight."

"Possessive stalking is the opposite of charming, Cal," she hums into his lips before kissing him, her hands catching up fabric and keeping him close as her tongue teases between his lips. The last traces of her chocolate something-whats-it dessert have him making a whimpered noise into the kiss (unintentionally, of course) and it leads her laughing against his mouth before she draws her head back, her tongue flicking out along her bottom lip.

"Don't change your mind on me, Foster." He digs her closer, curving his palms on her to enforce the words. "Not without lettin' me win it back, huh? Least leave me the option of a rebuttal."

Her head tips as she presses back from him, her glance focused. "I hadn't planned to change my mind about anything."

He winces at how sharply she's answered, lifts a hand between in explanation, "But that brain of yours has a tendency to - "

"Get in my own way?" Gillian asks quietly, the look on her face saying she's dubious but that she's not necessarily going to argue the point with him. Maybe he knows her just as much as she knows him, yeah? Maybe he's got a point to make whether she likes it or not.

"Don't go in there," Cal asks softly, drops it between them and watches the scrutiny of her reaction as she studies his face. "Come home with me tonight."

She's twitchy at first and he lifts his hands away from her in innocence, schools his face blank as she squints at him.

"Emily is waiting for you in the car," she murmurs, head lifting as she puts both hands into her pockets casually.

"She's a big girl." He knows he's pushin' his luck but, hell, he can't help himself. Not with her. Not when he thinks there's even the slightest possibility of her agreeing. "Graduatin' high school tomorrow and everythin'."

Her shoulders lift in a supposedly relaxed shrugging but she seems very interested in watching his face as she bites into her lip and then speaks. "Come over in the morning? Breakfast before the ceremony. Okay?"

It's not what he wants. It's not entirely what she wants either but she's being resilient with him, forcing him to stick with promises made. And that's Gillian, isn't it? Stuffing her hands into her pockets deeply to force herself away from touching him. Responsible.

So, no... it's not nearly what he wants. Because he wants to kiss her til they're both stupid and breathless and there isn't a damn thing he can think of wantin' more than hearing her moan his name.

But... breakfast works, he supposes.

At the very least he can impress the hell out of her.

"Leave the cooking t'me, though? Yeah? Because you're... psssh." His face scrunches after the noise with a disappointed and disgusted look before he chuckles at her responding glare. "You've eggs? Bread? Some sort of breakfast meat? Cuz I can supply a little - "

"I'll see you tomorrow." She waves off his obvious leering, laughing quietly as she turns toward her door and pulls the keys from her coat pocket.

Cal nods into watching her, suddenly feeling a coolness along the space she'd been taking up. He lets his voice soften from its teasing. "G'night, love."

And she's got bright eyes when she grins at him over her shoulder, pushing the door open under his obvious guarding. "Good night, Cal."

He decides very suddenly that he despises her apartment door.

Maybe he'll like it more in the morning, though.

* * *

He recognizes, peripherally and like the echo of a thought, that the ham is burning.

So long as she doesn't stop twisting his hair up in her fingers, though?

Hell, he'll take his Benedictine breakfast crispy fried, _thankyouverymuch_.

"Cal." Her voice is just about pliant as her hips as he shifts her, tucks her into his front while simultaneously leaning her back into her kitchen island. Her hands are over his chest, scraping at the fabric of his Henley, finding the belt at his hips and tugging with an upended patience.

A grunt comes up his throat, disregard as he kisses on her jaw and grips his hands up in the fabric of the Duke t-shirt she'd been prancing around the kitchen wearing. "Don't distract me."

Just a single slip of fabric and the sweetest little white half socks he's ever seen and, Jesus, she's endless. Long winsome grace and all legs under the hem of the shirt and the way he sways her farther back as he jerks the fabric harder up in his fists, winds it against his knuckles. She still smells like last night's perfume and he can taste her toothpaste as he runs his tongue against her teeth. She jerks suddenly against him to get his attention back, her hands as insistent as the way she tugs her head back.

"Cal." It's sharper this time, her tone and the way she jerks at him "Turn it off."

"But I'm hungry, love." He's whining, he knows, but he's doing it with laughter and doubled innuendo. One hand swipes back so that he can slap at the stove knobs, blindly shunting them to their 'off' positions while he's aiming his mouth back below her jaw. "Absolutely starvin'."

"I'll get you a Pop Tart before we leave," Gill mutters, a little annoyance and distraction delightfully drawing her voice lower and near sultry as she pries against his buckle impatiently. "Belt, please."

He gapes stunned at her for a second, his body slacked still as she smiles and works his belt open with nimble fingers.

So much for slow moving.

So much for keepin' his hands off her.

So much for her bein' the voice of reason (which, lasted half about as long as he'd assumed it would – surprising, but he appreciates the bump in the timeline).

"Found a little tart m'self, thank you," he taunts over her, rubs his lips down her throat as he manages to drive his fingers up under her shirt to the rise of her hips. The high and thin straps of her underwear draw his head up sharply in amused surprise, his head up and eyes on her face as he catches against the near lack of fabric. He ducks back as she watches him, fingers plucking at fabric as he drops his jaw and takes sight of black and barely there lace. "Oh, _hello_ there."

"Shut up." She blushes insanely quickly and he finds it fuckin' bewitching, teases the hem higher even as she tries to slap his hands down from her hips.

"Whose fancy knickers are these? Huh?" Cal demands loudly, prying the shirt higher with a broad chuckle as she slaps along his arm. She's stopped fighting his teasing though, instead leaning back into the counter and gripping the edge, letting him lift the shirt up under her breasts with both hands. "These are certainly _not_ Doctor Gillian Foster's knickers."

Can't help the groaning that lines itself up his throat as she shifts one leg a little higher, nervously pressing weight into the ball of her foot and her toes. "I told you to shut up. You're making me self conscious."

"Can't," he mutters, voice hushing in surprised quiet. "I'm filled with astonishment. Sexy Pants Foster."

When he looks up she's just cocking him a look that's somewhere between flushed innocent and full on coquette.

Right, so she'd known this was a distinct possibility then? Right?

Because he doubts Gillian is the type of woman to run about the house in sultry tiny underwear and pristine half socks. However... the distinct possibility that she actually is that sorta woman?

He'd long ago assumed he was beyond any sort of redemption or gifts from any God-like thing but, hell... feels like one or the other.

"You wore wicked little panties to breakfast?" He drags his hand up the inside of her left thigh, flicks his short nails against skin before cupping his hand between her legs, watching her face as he grinds the heel of his palm forward. "You're not a good girl at all."

She keens him a slow and jagged moan, drops her head back as he pinches her clit through her underwear and then mashes the fabric into it. The sound in combination with a forward arch of her hips is more than enough to encourage him. Hell, not that he needs encouragement. Not like he gets a lot of moments like this, moments when a willing Foster is moaning into the feeling of him finding her clit under damp fabric and if his head could literally fall off of surprise then it probably already would have.

Because he's never seen her look so utterly sexy than she does when he's making her skin flush so warmly pink just by taunting touches against the fabric of her underwear. Up against her kitchen counter in the morning and out of silliness and not because either of them are scared or worried or in need of emotional stability. It has nothing to do with anything else in their lives, but everything to do with the combination of their lives. She's letting him do it, enjoying it while he does, because she legitimately wants him to, wants to feel it.

That's something he still can't necessarily wrap his head entirely 'round.

He's not entirely sure he ever will.

"God, I can't even..." she stutters up, breathing uneven as her hips shiver into the surety of his hand. He can feel her fists lever on the fabric at his shoulders, fingers knotting into it so that she can keep the angle her spine is in even while he pinches on her clit and rubs the material against it. "Fuck."

He grins wildly at her use of the expletive, hums a proud sort of approval just before he slips fingers under the fabric of her underwear and finds slick skin, wets his fingers along her clit and groans at the silken feel of her. He strokes slowly, watches the way her face reacts to his teasing, watches her jaw go slack just after that tongue licks against her bottom lip and makes the crotch of his jeans feel about ten sizes too small.

Fucking hell, she's _gorgeous_.

"Dirty mouth, darling," he whispers against her parted lips, feels her moan a kiss into his mouth as he strokes a finger into her. Her body clamps around his finger, her hips driving down against his pressing as her tongue finds his. He kisses her roughly, can't help himself from it, can't not drive teeth and tonge against her when she starts rhythmically meeting her hips to the in and out twist and thrust of his finger. He feels her whimper against his lips when he adds another finger, hears her grasp for breath when he starts his thumb circling on her clit with an intentional slowness. Her breathing pants against his cheek and she makes a weak sound that he's sure is more 'yes' than 'no'. He's learned that one already, mentally stored the way it hums up from her lungs to her lips.

"I can't tell you 'no'." He can't tell if she's annoyed with herself about it, or just annoyed with him. Rather, by the way she's stroking his shoulders appreciatively, one of her hands rising to scrape her nails along his scalp, seems she's not _actually_ all that annoyed at all. At least, not nearly enough to tell him to stop.

"Sure y'can," he teases, watches her bite into her bottom lip in frustration. Suddenly and desperately he hates that she's not watching him the way he's watching her. Suddenly he desperately wants her attention on his face, on his voice, and not just on his hand. He wants her eyes, just for the truth that lives there. "Marry me, Gill?"

Can't say he hasn't imagined saying it (once or twice, maybe, when he was feelin' especially saccharin). Though, it was always a far more romantic setting than leaned up against her kitchen island as he skims her knickers down her legs but, hell, he knows it'll rouse her out of her own stirring delirium. And he wants her eyes, open and bright even as she flutters him a widened look of sudden confusion. He pulls his fingers from her but keeps his palm pressed close as she stares him down, searching his face for a clue as to sincerity.

"Cal... did you really just..." He smiles ruefully as she stutters and blinks again, just before her palm slaps openly against his tensed arm. "No, jackass."

"See?" He chuckles sporadic kisses onto her mouth, her jaw, against her cheek as she continues to shove at him in mock annoyance. "Plenty of negation left on those pretty lips."

"Cal- " Her voice is swallowed by a surprised gulp as he strokes his finger back into her, focusing on her face once again as she blinks her eyes shut and moans through pressed lips. He sets a slowly taunting rhythm while his thumb taps unevenly on her clit, keeping her hips shivering as she lazily lifts her arms along his shoulders. That's perfect, that is. Her ability to make something so intimately comfortable. "Mmmm hmmm."

It's intoxicating, how wet she is as she hugs him closer. How content she is to let him touch all over her, please and tease her as she stretches her shoulders, head tipping as his mouth falls kissing and licking along her throat. "Losin' language, are we?"

He lets her cling to him and keeps a hand between her thighs, the other stroking up under the thin t-shirt so that he can brush her stomach, rise against her breasts and curve around one of them. He finds a nipple and teases on it while he keeps his other hand working slowly, intentionally lagged and teasing on her. "Cal... that's perfect."

The purred hum of her voice could, possibly, actually kill him someday. Or, at the least, knock him firm to the ground and breathless. Or it could if she hadn't managed to stroke one hand down between them, palming against his cock even through his pants. It blinds his brain white for a moment, long enough that he loses track of what he's doing for a few moments. The laugh that trips off her lips in response draws his attention up again, though. The sound demands his attention just as her thigh lifting against his leg demands more from his fingers while she rubs up and down his zipper.

"Gill," he groans into her throat, unintentionally bucking his hips into the pressure of her palm. "This is torture."

"Just..." she can't seem to breathe properly as she speaks, "mmm."

Course, she's not the only one having trouble in the oxygenation department. "Punishin' me for the knickers bit?"

"Possibly," she kisses against his lips smugly.

Cal nods, finds another kiss from her before rubbing his lips on her jaw, "M'losin' my patience, darling."

"Tough." Her voice is strained, shivered and taut. He can feel her body riding up closer and tighter to him, more desperate as she whimpers and rubs harder along his jeans. She's so ridiculously close, clinging against him as she begs out a moan. "More."

He does what he can to compartmentalize the fact that he has exactly what he's wanted for more than months under the touch of his hands, does his best to ignore the fact that if she keeps up with what she's doing he's just going to lose it right in his pants and embarrass the bloody hell out of himself before he even gets the laundry scented shirt off her top half.

He ignores everything but the feel of her clamping around his fingers, the pulsing of her body under his touch as he watches her face. Her head tips back, hair tipping off her shoulders and the hand he's got under her shirt slides down, braces on her waist to keep her semi balanced while he thrusts two fingers deeper into her and moves his thumb faster. He intentionally watches her come, watches her moan out a long breath as she digs into his shirt roughly and pulls herself back up. There's a moment when she's utterly out of control and he watches it happen, studies its stunning evolution as she shivers and clamps around his fingers, her mouth crashing onto his in sharp surprise as she calls out and clutches on him entirely.

Somewhere outside of conscious recognition he feels her brace so tightly around him – because he's otherwise so entirely entranced by the fact she's got her forehead pressed to his as she moans. Her eyes are shut and she clings tighter after ending the kiss, panting out another whimpering sound as he stills his fingers and curves the other arm against her lower back slowly, carefully. She's shivering as he braces her up, thighs tensed and keeping his hand still between her legs as she forces herself to breathe, to try and even herself back to reality. Cal unconsciously grins, kisses on her ear and closes her up tighter along the front of him by the press of his arm.

"What changed your mind?" he questions into her hair, nuzzling against the side of her head as she shivers the weight of her body wearily into his chest. "Hmm? Tell me."

She sighs a sort of sated exhaustion against his shirt and he smiles even wider, jaw dipping as she speaks. "Condom, Cal."

He arches a glance down over her in slight surprise, smirking into the directness of her tone as he wipes his fingers against her pelvis and feels her hips tense forward in response. She's still shivering into him, her head dropped forward onto his collarbone as she tries to even out her breathing and keeps fingering the dark fabric of his shirt. At the very least she keeps burrowing closer, rubbing into the front of him until he intentionally stills her, stops the friction of her against his erection, knowing it'll break him.

"In a minute. In the bedroom, right?" he questions, grinning when she finally lifts him a half glare at how easily he's pegged her and her habits. She starts pulling from him and he tugs her back into him, his movements rougher than intended so he softens his voice as she sharpens him a look of confusion. "Hold up. Tell me, Gill."

It's surprising to him that she still seems innocent, shy as he begs this truth of her.

Except that it's not surprising at all, because she's still his Gillian.

And, really, he doesn't expect any different.

"Look at me." His left hand rises along her throat, fingers spread out while he uses the pad of his thumb to force her jaw up higher, demands she meet his eyes with the brighter color of her own. "What was it?"

"I hated letting you leave last night. Not being with you. Not... and when I knew I could have?" Her admission goes muffled as she declines looking at him, embarrassment flushing her cheeks and warming against his neck as she curls up into his chest and drives into the way he wraps around her. "I absolutely hated it. More than anything, I just didn't want to be apart. Especially when I knew we didn't have to be."

He doesn't have an answer.

He nearly has a heart attack, but not necessarily an answer for her.

He has, instead, exactly what he needs, cradled up in his arms as she fiddles with his shirt and rubs her face into the warm fabric of his shirt.

He grins down into the way she lifts her head and nudges her forehead into his cheek, her voice quietly self conscious. "That stupid?"

"That's not stupid, Gill," he exhales quietly, relief ruffling warmth into her hair as he rubs his face into its heat. "It's pretty bloody perfect from where I'm standin'."

"I'm not saying that I don't still have reservations about - "

"Accepted." Cal nods and squeezes her closer, digs her up tighter into him while he lets his hand take a possessive tour of the back of one thigh. "Give a try, though?"

She makes an appreciative noise when his fingers squeeze tight against muscle, drawing her leg up by a jerked pull to the back of her knee. She lets him wrap her leg against his hip, lets him unbalance her against the counter ledge all over again while she ribs the fabric of his shirt in her fingers. "Well, I didn't wear those particular panties for my health, Cal."

"Wore 'em for me, didja?" He grins all bright and new and it's more innocent than usual. He's legitimately pleased, excited, enthralled by the proposition.

Gill gives a tug on his shirt, jerks twice on sweat damp fabric while his fingertips trace her skin. "Not _just_ for you."

"Thought you could get somethin' outta me by way of skimpy knickers?"

"Yes, that was exactly my plan. I need a handyman around the house," she says drolly, rolling him a blanked look and a shrug. "How are you at the plumbing?"

"Oh, _excellent_ , darling."

She laughs into his mischievous leering, the sound more perfect to him than the scant fabric he leaves forgotten on the floor as he tugs her up and heads her for the bedroom.

* * *

There is safety in simply holding her hand – a touch that is normal and everything but all at once. Because she sweetly holds his palm clasped up between her own even as the both of them watch straight ahead and he realizes that, more than likely, she's damningly correct. In her concerns and her worries when it comes to his reckless behavior. Even, possibly, when it comes to the situation they currently find themselves in. Because he's watching the back of his daughter's head, desperate as he squeezes her lower palm up into his and digs his fist deeper into her lap.

She'd had a point, yeah?

The knowledge that Emily is very soon leaving a hole of vacancy in his life has him... grossly lost.

He can't seem to function past the very idea, let alone imagine the actuality of it.

And maybe that quiet but manic desperation has him holding this woman closer and tighter than he's ever allowed himself to before... She's right. He's reaching for a lifeline - but she's the only thing that will keep him from foundering.

"Relax." She kisses the word warmly whispered on his jaw and he feels the ache in his teeth, realizes that he's been clenching them together in stilted silence for the entirety of the ceremony.

"You're supposed to be enjoying this."

"You're right," he murmurs, still watching as Emily fixes the cap on her head but keeping his voice hushed for Gill only, "but you're wrong too."

"About?"

He turns his head into how closely she's watching his profile, blinks under her intense perusal of his features and smiles. "Not just about filling the void, Gill."

She squints at him as though she's debating the veracity of the statement but then her face softens entirely, her eyes soften and brighten in their blue. "No?"

He shakes his head in agreement to the question, no, not at all. "Needed the push is all."

Her smile seems weightless, entirely breathless as she studies his eyes. "Okay."

"Wanted you for ages." And he can't help but smile into saying it, especially when she's still giving him a look that says she's equally smitten, just as happily giddy as he may actually be. "Y'know that."

"Don't worry about that right now." She shakes it off like it shouldn't be important, not with the ceremony still going on before them. "You should be - "

"You belong right here, Gill," he interrupts in a hush, squeezing on her hand as he looks forward and finds Emily grinning back at them with wide eyes and her cap crooked all over again. "Truth."

"Thank you." Her voice has a hushed and reverent quality to it, a note that is primarily touched and endearing and he peripherally catches the dip of her head, shy instead of holding his glance.

He doesn't respond vocally, barely makes a movement at first either.

Just leans his lips sidelong against her temple briefly, her fingers scrunched up in his fist as he exhales. "You belong here, love."

The repetition doesn't negate the fact that it's a simple truth to him, one that disregards any theory she may have about deflection or distraction.

In his life, the day to day or pivotal moments, she's right where she belongs.

Now it's just a matter of making sure that's where she stays.


End file.
